Data sharing capabilities have increased tremendously with the popularity of wide area networks (WANs) such as the Internet. For example, disparate users in different countries or continents can share large amounts of shared data. Shared data may include multimedia data, audio data, and/or video data, typically in the form of large data files. Data sharing applications are commonly used to store or “post” shared data on a central server connected to the Internet for access by other users. Thus, a user can access the posted data via the central server.
One type of data sharing application is a “collaboration application.” A collaboration application allows multiple users to work together on the same project from remote locations. For example, users in California and New York can work on the same project via the Internet through a collaboration application. Typically, in a collaboration application, a user “posts” or stores data for the project on the central server connected to the Internet. Other users connected to the Internet can then request the posted data from the central server. The central server processes these requests to provide the users with posted data for collaboration purposes.
This configuration is suitable for users in remote locations. However, one limitation with such a configuration is that it is inefficient for multiple users collaborating on a project from the same local area, e.g., users on a local area network (LAN). Often, communicating with a central server can be slow. For example, if the central server is experiencing a high volume of traffic, the central server will be slow in delivering requested data to LAN users. Low bandwidth connections to the central server can exacerbate the situation. Thus, requiring local area users to download data from only a central server inefficiently uses network resources when the data may already exist locally. Furthermore, multiple local area users collaborating on a project using such a configuration can result in data being downloaded multiple times, causing further inefficient use of local area resources.
There exists, therefore, a need to allow local area users a fast and efficient manner of accessing posted data.